Posts under ‘putting by’

This week, I had a few Dark Days Eat Local Challenge meals. Could be the warm weather, could be the mad rush to cook as many local meals as possible before the challenge ends. Or it could simply be that I didn’t have as many evening meetings or dinners out last week! One meal was [...]

This is what happens to potatoes in the cupboard when no one’s paying attention: I should have put them in a cooler in the garage, but (…shoulda, woulda, coulda…) I didn’t. It’s too early to plant them and too late to eat them. Compost? Art? Thoughts anyone?

I had a fabulously local Thanksgiving! The meal was the culmination of a years’ worth of locavoring with several dishes from the freezer, jars, and vacuum-sealed packages, where they’d been since they were picked and preserved in season. I enjoyed collecting and preparing the various menu items as much as I did eating them!  I [...]

Macoun season is coming to a close so it’s time to gather up as many of these delectable apples and save them for the cold dark days to come. We core and section the apples and simmer them in about one inch of cider. When the sections are fork tender, we crank them through the [...]

I bought a dehydrator simply to make yogurt. Sure, I told myself at the time, I could dry berries and cherries and make healthy chips out of root vegetables. But the main driver was that I needed a reliable incubator for my yogurt and that was all. Sure, I’ve tried a few vegetable experiments, previously [...]

I just got the Summer 2008 Edition of the Edible Nutmeg (at New Morning Natural Foods). It’s probably been out awhile…I need to subscribe already. Anyway, what caught my eye in this issue was an article called Putting By. I have to admit, I’m slowly warming up to the idea of food preservation, and not [...]

To cap off a perfect day, we spent Saturday evening with the Sisters at Bluestone Farm, where we sampled many of their delectables as they were puttin’ ‘em by. The Sisters had harvested some Nero Italian kale and some rutabagas. I learned that rutabagas can be cut into strips and deep fried, like French fries. [...]

July 22 (today) is the fifth week of our CSA (Waldingfield Farm, pick-up point Sandy Hook Organic Farmer’s Market). Our bounty included: – mixed salad greens – sugar peas (or are these snap peas?) – kale – Swiss chard – yellow summer squash – patty pan squash – broccoli Our local dinner (no challenge) was [...]

When I started this local eating thing, I had no intention of puttin’ food by (storing it either by canning, freezing, drying, or some other method). I was to be a grasshopper, patron of the ants of the world. It turns out that there are not enough ants to feed locavore grasshoppers. While we made [...]

My biggest barrier to making my own raw milk yogurt was in finding a reliable low-heat source. My electric oven does not have a pilot and the light bulb lights intermittently. With the arrival of my Excalibur Dehydrator, I am ready to go! I do like the organic local Hawthorne Valley yogurt as well as [...]